I suppose they could stick the child in a mental asylum for the rest of her life. Is that what you're advocating ?I think what he was advocating was not catering to every immature whim of an 8 year old!

Salamandyr : I think what he was advocating was not catering to every immature whim of an 8 year old!

After six years it's hardly a whim. Plus this is the kind of thing that causes some people to kill themselves, so I hardly think it poor parenting on the part of the parents to try to deal with it this way.

I think what he was advocating was not catering to every immature whim of an 8 year old!

Total agreement with Jason. This is good parenting.

Either the kid has gender identity issues or he doesn't. If he does, then treating him this way is humane, and after what seems to be many years of the kid saying the same thing over and over, it doesn't seem like a whim.

If he doesn't really have gender identity issues, how does this harm anyone?

If I were the parent here, and someone commented negatively on what I had done for the best interest of my child -- and made that comment out of ignorance, because there's just no way someone outside the family knows what's going on -- they'd get a big STFU from me. Except I'd be much too polite -- being a midwestern, and all -- to say it that way.

Besides, I have three daughters and all they wear are jeans and t-shirts.

If I had a son who wanted to dress-up like a girl all the time, I would not let him. He is a boy and will remain so. He isn't very well going to learn how to be a boy if he keeps pretending he is a girl. His parents are setting him up to never adjust to life as it is.

Boy, those parents sure are wimpy to be pushed around by an 8-year old.

It happens that parents have a legal right to define their child's gender ID until age of majority. Just like their education, diet, religion, media ingestion, and everything else. And absent the threat of death there's nothing others can do about it.

I'm glad that progressives are avoiding reproduction, practicing, infanticide, and turning out cripples at such high rates that their future ability to to harm will be reduced.

As Shelly Berman said so many years ago when it was a joke instead of an unfortunate social disorder, "Tell my nephew he's a boy. Now is the time he should learn before he grows up and makes an arbitrary decision."

What's right for the family or the kid or the church is well into the realm of how-would-I-know, as far as I'm concerned.

What I do find it interesting to think about is how differently we perceive the idea of encouraging children to either accept or reject gender roles/stereotypes. Specifically, hasn't it been in fashion to tell girls not to think of their girlhood in terms of pretty dresses and princess fantasies? Yet for some, to tell a boy that is cruel or worse. Hmm.

The hardest thing in the world is to find compassion in your heart for those so troubled. It is easy to be dogmatic and inflexible. I think the proper thing to do is let the child receive Communion at a Mass without the hoopla and disruption it would cause if he or she was included as a cross dressing third grader in the Communion service. I am sure it would be amusing for you Catholic bashing shitheads but the important thing is that the child receives the body and blood of Christ and that he or she knows that no matter what, Jesus loves him or her and that the power of the Holy Spirit can help find him or her find peace. That is what we all owe this child.

They can sort out the problem later. Let him or her feel Jesus's love. It can help.

Duncan : It happens that parents have a legal right to define their child's gender ID until age of majority. Just like their education, diet, religion, media ingestion, and everything else. And absent the threat of death there's nothing others can do about it.

I can imagine the conversation this kind of thinking might lead to: "While you're alive you'll live by my rules. You want to dress like a girl? Well here's knife, go slit your throat. I'd rather see you dead!"

When I was a kid I had a classmate who had Tourettes syndrome. He would shout out the foulest curses all day long. We didn't know about Tourettes in the sixties, we just called him Louie Nerve. Now as you might expect, nobody wanted him shouting out "cocksucker" in the Communion or confirmation services. That would have been even more disruptive than a cross dressing gender confused little boy/girl. But they managed to get him confession, communion and confirmation without the world coming to an end.

Jesus's love is there. We need to share it. Especailly with people who have troubles. It's the right thing to do.

-surely there must have been some back room they could have used so as to not shock the normal kids, the family could have taken formal pictures at their leisure, maybe a blind priest could have been flown in, lots of options went unexplored here...

I like the way St. Wenceslaus handled it. If I read it right, they let the parents decide what to do about the little boy, but they asked the family not to make the other children at the school deal with it. If my child were at that school, I would appreciate that. Also, if my children knew about Ben/Katie, I would not allow them to make fun. Some things are just impossible to understand or explain. Common courtesy is always good. The parents seem to be handling it just fine--finding another church where Ben/Katie could make his/her First Communion, and letting Ben decide how he wants to be dressed.

At some point, Katie's little friends will know that she's different; I hope the parents are prepared for that. I hope they also know what to do about dating when Katie is asked out by some nice boy.

I agree with Trooper. The Church could have been more compassionate in this case. It's funny that this story comes out today after the events at ND this weekend. I suspect many more unflattering stories on the Church will come out soon...

MadisonMan said...it's not fine for them to impose this on the rest of the school.

Exactly what, in your opinion, is the this that they imposing on the school?

How about which restroom (s)he uses? I certainly wouldn't object, but I know my daughters wouldn't like a boy (however dressed) in their bathroom. I can't say I would blame them either.I would be very surprised, incidentally, if a doctor would do an orchiectomy on a 9-year-old, barring cancer or something like that. But I've been very surprised before.

Why not do the operation right away? They seem to be accepting the kid's wishes and all...

Because if *clothes* are that important to *identity* then the child has a severe mental issue that ought to be *cured* instead of coddled. A boy acting like this is *not* acting like a girl acts. This isn't how girls behave. Not even the princesses.

And I cringe every time I hear someone say something like "and play the way girls do with girl-things," because how is that anyway? How do "girls" play? And how do "boys" play?

Certainly we understand that even generalities exist in ranges and that stereotypical behaviors over-lap?

Some girls play with girl-things... and some *don't*. Some boys love to play dress-up and "house" with their sisters and some sisters like the dress-up and "house" to be pirates. GI Joe dolls ARE Barbies and some girls and boys like playing with them and some girls and boys don't like playing dolls.

Instead of becoming accepting of differences and instead of seeing people as individuals we've become obsessed with categorizing and ordering every last person and if they don't fit perfectly we either make them fit or start a new category, a new label on a new box to shove them into.

Young children are *obsessed* with figuring out how they fit in the world and then do everything they can to conform to the pattern they identify. Most of them grow out of it. Or they would.

Wasn't there a post a couple days ago about attaching everything under the sun to one's sense of identity?

dbp, if the staff can safely accommodate this child's needs, with the okay of his parents, there's really no need for you to worry about it. Or for you to pass your worries onto your kids.

I would say a reasonable suggestion would be for the kid to use either the staff bathroom, or one of the bathrooms attached to individual classrooms. The school at my church has those, and so did my kids' K-2 school. Now wasn't that simple? What are you really worried about?

Or maybe the kid is blessed with my son's iron bladder. He went 11 hours once, on a trip, without peeing.

They didn't find a "new Church," DTL. They found another Catholic parish where Ben could make his First Communion in a white dress without everyone in the congregation standing up to gawk at a little boy who dresses funny. That's compassion.

I am not my plumbing... oh, wait! I AM my plumbing! The most important thing about me in the entire world is my plumbing! But it's *wrong* plumbing! Oh no!!! The SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING ABOUT ME IS WRONG!

Hey downtownlad, I'm impressed by how you managed to shoehorn political partisanship into this, but in case you missed it, the commenters here aren't the government. As for the church being bigotted, if by that you mean they have standards that differ from yours, then you're right. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, that's always what you mean by bigotted.

Used to be that if you were a woman and you were in the military the assumption was that you were a dyke because military wasn't anything that a real female would actually be interested in or suited for.

We've worked so incredibly hard to get past gender stereotyping to view people as individuals with interests, hopes and dreams that are not defined by their sex.

Only we've failed. Because it's even more strict and even more repressive than before. Someone decided, not that gender doesn't matter, but that it's separate from "sex" and does, indeed, define absolutely everything about us. And if you don't FIT then there is something wrong with you.

When I was a kid, the pastor in my church would perform funerals for guys in the Mafia. It didn't matter if they died of natural causes like Profaci or they got rubbed out like Bobby Boriello, they had the compassion and forgiveness that Jesus promised us even though some of the higher ups in the church thought it was a a "sin" and a "scandal." These were bad men, murderer's and robbers and sadists.But in the end they were granted God's grace in the hope that they might find forgiveness and salvation through the prayers of the faithful for mercy on their immortal souls. This child needs mercy. We should leave the politics of gender and liberal/conservative at the door of the church and like the pastor at the church who gave him communion, you should find it in your heart to grant some mercy to a troubled and confused child. His or her road will be hard enough, I think we should show her love and the path to find redemption in peace through her faith which must not abandon her no matter what.

"The Church said absolutely not," is neutrally presented? The fact is, we don't know what the Church said, because their side of the story is not reported. We have no idea what accommodations were offered, if any. This story combines two reliably high-traffic topics, just the sort of thing that draws out the less-than-responsive members of the commentariat.

Boys usually love their genitalia. Ask any preschool or kindergarten teacher. After spending an inordinate amount of time with little guys, I can say the phrase "get your hand out of your pants" in a completely matter-of-fact voice, followed up with, "private parts are for private times," or something like that. It's sad that this child is so disordered. The parents took him to "a shrink," but did they take him to a neurologist or an endocrinologist, first? We don't know that, either.

And the boy's restroom has stalls... no need to stand at the urinal out there in front of everyone.

If it's no problem to use the girl's restroom, why isn't it no problem to use the boy's restroom?

Not that I think it's a problem if he uses the girl's restroom... or wears a dress... or takes communion with the other kids at the church where everyone knows him. And Jen is right about the dog and Trooper is entirely right about what ought to be the concern of the church.

I'm just concerned... you let a kid crawl into a confining little identity box while still a pre-schooler and exactly how is that child ever supposed to figure out how to crawl out of it?

If the restroom doesn't matter then it doesn't matter... but clearly it *does* matter. Profoundly. It shouldn't matter, but it does. But instead of insisting that it is unimportant we act in ways to confirm that it's the most important thing in the whole world.

I'm suprised that anyone who's been around kids wouldn't know that an 8-yr-old has a gender identity.

Toddler girls are drawn to pink and purple. It's not just that those are the colors marketed to them - they're drawn to them.

And gender is a very complex thing. It used to be thought that a person was XX or XY, end of story. Of course there's also XO (Turner's syndrome), XXY (Kleinfelter's syndrome) and other anomalies that you can't see by counting chromosomes.

What matters isn't "seek out the mutants", it's for people to be who they are. None of us is threatened if a person didn't come from either cookie cutter A or cookie cutter B. If that were my kid, he'd get my unconditional love and acceptance.

One of the things I really liked about my former church -- back when we lived out east -- was the annual service for pets. I think it helped that the asst rector had a HUGE white loveable monstrosity of a dog.

As to whether dogs go to heaven, I think a priest should just say that heaven is a beautiful place, and can you imagine such a place without your dog? Let the listener draw his or her own conclusion. This tendency to give all the answers in religion is not a road to travel. The beauty of religion is finding your own answers.

"Their church said absolutely not, so the parents found a new one that let them."

Not a single quote attributed to the first church, no recognition that, although the "bad/intolerant" church that said "no" was Catholic, the "good/tolerant" church that said "yes" was also Catholic.

In fact, there is not a thing about this story that suggests the reporter did anything more than "hear a story" and sit down and bang this crap out. Everyone is so fast to believe this is a true story, because it's in the paper. What about this is checkable, and verifiable?

I could just as easily made something like this up. Girl wants to make communion in a bear suit. Mean church said no, so parents found another church that said yes, because shrinks say species-confusion should be dealt with.

IF the story is true, it worked out for the best.

But why in heaven's name are we assuming anything about it is true when nothing is sourced?

Really, this is very sloppy. I'm surprised Prof. Althouse did not point all this out, herself.

Jen, do you think that studying Catholicism as an adult might yield new perspective for you? What we learn as a child provides a good basis for what we can understand as adults. The problem is, most people stop learning about their religion when they quit going to Sunday school.

Your story reminds me of my older sister's aversion to the color green. When we were little, we went to a Catholic school and had to wear green knee socks and green plaid uniforms. She left that school almost 40 years ago, but she still won't wear green. I don't get it. This kind of thinking represents an entire lifetime of lost opportunity. Of course with my sister it's just more limited clothing options, but with you it's your spiritual life.

Once a year my parish has a ceremony to bless all the animals. The pet owners line up with their dogs and cats and parakeets and gerbils and hamsters and snakes and one year this guy had a huge pot bellied pig. Father would come out and bless them with special prayers for the one's that were ill. It is a tradition that goes back many years.

Yes Titus, the St. Mary's had no problem blessing somebody's hog.

Most of the people who have the most to say about the Church don't have any idea what they are talkin' about.

synova, sure, I guess there's less to it, but it's still there. Women who get hit on and don't respond "must be a dyke" - I guess that comforts the loser who can't figure out how to talk to women. Girls who play sports and aren't gay sometimes turn homophobic because others assume they are gay - there's lots of closet space in high school and college women's sports. Lots of paranoia. So, no, it's not gone.

Seems the first Catholics school DID try to accommodate Ben/Katie, allowing him to use the nurse's restroom, but they were reluctant to introduce him as "Katie" in the middle of First Communion. Not horrible. That school went as far as it could go in understanding, so fine. The next school went further.

It's not quite the "the first school kicked them out, so they found another school" hatefest that the Daily News implies.

I can't believe the Daily News published that poorly written, crabby piece. What a rag. Journalism is in a deplorable state.

And yet, Laura, what if your daughter doesn't like pink? Just because many do doesn't mean that a significant number of young girls don't like pink at all. And some little boys are drawn to the color pink. Some very masculine young men still like the color pink. Some very masculine, even hyper-masculine young gangsters prefer the glitter and "bling". For a while in History the fashionable young man wore ruffles and silk, a wig of long, curly locks, powdered his face and added rouge and a patch. Why are we so convinced that our present conventions about what "language" communicates feminine or masculine are anything but a fad?

Perhaps instead of being confused about gender, the poor child is misplaced in time.

It is really really funny that you mention kilts. There was a dude who was wearing a kilt to church this Sunday. As I was kneeling in the pew after Communion I looked up and there was this dude wearing a kilt with a heavy coat over it because it was unseasonably cold Sunday. He was the last guy in line and was sort of looking around to see what the reaction would be for a guy wearing a kilt in a heavily guniea church. I really don't know what that was about but he definitely looked Scottish and he was wearing what looked like the tartan of the "Black Watch." Anyway after Mass the guy was in a little in front of me in line and when Father shook his hand all he did was smile and say "I hope you are staying warm, cause the swine flu is going around to be sure." I don't know if that was the reaction the guy was going for but it was very appropriate.

Apparently, parents such as dbp get skeeved out on the notion that this poor child might be in the wrong room. A room that is likely all enclosed stalls anyway.

You entirely misunderstand what I was saying. As I said before--I certainly wouldn't object, but rather am sensitive to the fact that my kids would be bothered by it. How is my concern for my children's feelings any different from the that of Ben/Katie's parents?

St. Wenceslaus, the first church the boy attended, is a Catholic church. So is Sacred Heart, the one where he made his First Communion.

The reporter couldn't just make up a story like this. Omaha is a small town and Wenceslaus is a tight parish. I don't know why the parents agreed to a newspaper article and TV interviews. I didn't see the interviews but understand that the little guy's face is not shown but the mom's face IS shown. So much for anonymity. No way to keep this a secret, once you've agreed to go public.

If this boy is just playing at being a girl, now he has no chance at the "phase" being forgotten. If he does have identity problems and ends up living as a woman, he still has no chance of doing it quietly in Omaha. The parents tell the story as if they are trying hard to understand their son--but they aren't trying very hard to understand how going public will affect him. I don't get their motives here.

Most girls like pink. If you have one that doesn't, then let her wear blue or green or whatever she wants. Deviating from the norm in this way doesn't make her not a person and it's not something that has to be controlled or corrected.

A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead.

He remembered dying, and that the dog walking beside him had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them.

After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall along one side of the road. It looked like fine marble. At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the sunlight.

When he was standing before it he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like mother-of-pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like pure gold. He and the dog walked toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side.When he was close enough, he called out, 'Excuse me, where are we?'

'This is Heaven, sir,' the man answered. 'Wow! Would you happen to have some water?' the man asked.

Of course, sir. Come right in, and I'll have some ice water brought right up.'The man gestured, and the gate began to open.

"And they are only hard to change if society places a lot of significance on them and stigmatizes nonconformists."

Well, I think that a whole heck of a lot of significance is being put on them, don't you?

I'm all for doing everything possible not to stigmatize nonconformists, but my feeling is that we've gone overboard and fetishized nonconformity to the extent that it's become conformity again.

Maybe we'd all be better off if children all wore identical little coveralls, all the same, until they were 12. Maybe we'd be far better off if we didn't dress our little boys up in baseball or sailor outfits so they didn't have to feel like that was their identity, and we didn't dress our little girls up like sluts.

"Deviating from the norm in this way doesn't make her not a person and it's not something that has to be controlled or corrected."

My point, Laura, is that not liking pink does not mean that a little girl has deviated from the gender identity of "girl". It simply means that pink is not her favorite color. If she does not like pink best, but instead likes blue, it does not mean that she is actually a little boy and we should call her a boy name... not even if she also likes playing "cars" and either "Rambo" or "Cowboy's and Indians" instead of diapering a baby-doll.

If a boy likes pink, frills, and sparkles... it doesn't mean that he's not actually a real boy. And while there is no reason at all (and lots of reasons not) to control or *correct* his preferences, why is it necessary to view his preferences as not allowed a boy? Does someone say... yes, it's quite all right for a BOY to like pink and sparkles? Does someone rent some Historical movies or "Highlander" vids with the glamorous outfits, ruffles and multi-colored silks and satins or Duncan in his kilt and say, Hey, look! it's quite all right for a BOY to like those things?

As far as I can tell, they don't.

As far as I can tell, what they do it tell the little boy that because he likes girl-things, he's really a little girl.

As to the little child who has gender identity issues: I think that age 8 is a bit young to make an irrevocable choice one way or the other.

I feel for the parents in some ways because this is a difficult time for them. If I were they, I would be second guessing myself all over the place. "Am I doing the right thing by allowing my child to change genders at this age?" "If I don't, will I be causing future psycological pain by denying my child the ability to be what he/she is intended to be?" "Maybe this is just a phase?" "What if this isn't a phase?" and so on.

I have to say that I somewhat agree with those who don't like that the child's gender confusion is going to be forced to be experienced by the rest of the students in the school. Some concepts are just better left alone or dealt with by the parents and not officious shool administrators, when it comes to small children

I've been thinking about this story all morning, and I've wanted to say something intelligent, but I've got nothing---that is, except sadness over what this child is going through and will go through for the rest of his life. And no that's not some veiled attempt to criticize any party involve, it is what it is. I'm tapped.

That's not to say that I can't sign up to what some of the other folks have said though. I especially like Trooper York's focus. And this quote from DTL really stuck out:

Also, there is a movement amongst transgendered to not get surgery at all - and just live as transgendered.

This just strikes me as a good thing for some reason, and I hope this "movement" gains traction.

What the boy wears, or what name he goes by is irrelevent. I'm sure the church couldn't really care too much less. The important thing to object to is that the boy is being taught that he is not a boy.

This is disturbing. You cannot change what you are. You can be an effeminate boy, but you're still a boy.

Even people who use surgery to pretend that they're not male are only kidding themselves. They're really just very expensive transvestites.

It's a tragedy that this poor boy is not being helped in a more responsible way.

I am sure it would be amusing for you Catholic bashing shitheads but the important thing is that the child receives the body and blood of Christ and that he or she knows that no matter what, Jesus loves him or her and that the power of the Holy Spirit can help find him or her find peace.

It will be even more amusing to see how the One True Church reacts when this kid decides to become a priest.

""He insisted he would not attend his First Communion... unless he could wear a pretty white dress.""

Kids "insist" on a lot of things. I bet we have our fair share of non-transgendered kids screaming bloody murder about dressing up for this rite too. Sensitive parents will of course find a church where clean jeans and a t-shirt are acceptable first holy communion attire.

Hey Smilin Jack, the priest that performed my marriage ceremony was definitely gay. Father Mychal Judge who was a hero of 911 is generally acknowledged to have been gay. I would venture to say that every Catholic who posts here knows of a priest or a brother or a nun who is gay. As long as they live a celibate priestly life they are "true" priests who are worthy of their vocation and sacred in the eyes of the Lord.

Sometimes they might fall short of their ideals just like heterosexual priests do now and then. They are just imperfect human beings. They need mercy too.

Just like any organization the Church has rules and beliefs. If you want to belong to the organization, you need to believe and follow the rules. In this respect the Church isn't tolerant of heresy within its own ranks. This is the main reason people are upset with Notre Dame honoring a man who is representative of beliefs that are anathama to the Church's doctrine. However, the Church is tolerant of other beliefs and even of non believers. You don't see the Catholic Church telling Baptists, Mormon etc what they should believe in or how they should be treating their constituents.

Also like Trooper says the Church is tolerant and forgiving of those who have sinned and who have repented. Unlike the venom spewed by DTL the Church IS tolerant and loving of gays. It is the love the sinner but not the sin rule. There are many gay priests and nuns and as long as they don't "sin" they are loved and welcomed.

If a person feels that they can't adhere to the doctrine or that they have an uncontrollable urge to reform the Catholic Church to make it more like Presbyterians or Lutherans, that person is free to find their own way and leave the Church.

That intolerant church would have let Ben make his First Communion there. What they didn't want was to force other families into a discussion with their children about why it is okay for Ben to dress in a white dress--and to call himself by another name--on an occasion when to do so would be seen as disrespectful. (For every other little boy there, it would be considered disrespectful.) Families need to pick and choose the moments when they discuss topics like this, and St. Wenceslaus acted to protect that choice. Some third graders may be ready to understand about Ben's problems with his identity, but others may not.

The Church used to toast them like marshmallows, until, after many bloody wars, they lost the power to do so. The Church is now "tolerant" in the same sense that Charles Manson is.

Some of your ancestors somewhere along the line owned slaves. That is a 100% guarantee whether your ancestors came from China, Europe, Africa or just about anyplace else in the world. Just because you have lost the power to own slaves does that still make you a guilty slave owner? Or does it make you a person and part of a culture that has grown beyond such things?

The Catholic Church along with a whole lot of other religions (think Salem and the witch hunts) put people to the stake and toasted them like marshmallows in the past. SO you think they still hunt witches in Salem? I don't recall the Catholic Church conducting an Auto de Fey recently. Of course......no one expects the Spanish Inquisition or to be audit by the IRS at the instruction of the President of the US...do they?

You choose the material you'll use here, and in that choice, you are making a comment. It's up to us to try and figure out what it is you're trying to say.

The article you quoted was far from neutral, as several commenters have pointed out. You could have linked to the far-more-fair Omaha World-Herald article. It's not as pithy but it's also not as blatantly anti-Catholic.

The Trooper speaks from experience, and I can confirm that in my experience Catholics major in showing Mercy to hurting people.The Catholic Hospitals are wonderful places compared to the rest. But then again, in organized team sports, the Catholic schools seem to try to win harder than the rest. They have such good discipline and mature coaching that it is almost unfair to have to play them. Maybe they want to put the hurt on you so that they can show you mercy. I suspect that they pray before games/matches too. May God continue to bless you and His Church, Trooper.

Thanks traditionalguy but I am very blessed already. You see I have often recieved mercy and forgiveness. I just want to extend it to others who are in need. You will find that a lot in the pews of your local Catholic Church. Only a sinner can really understand.

Synova and Jen, I don't think the problem here is that a little boy wants to wear dresses and play with "girl things." That would just be a matter of his adopting an eccentric approach to being a boy; eventually he will either grow out of it or find friends that are comfortable with it.

As I understand the article, the problem is that a little boy wants to be a girl. That is not a matter of eccentric tastes, but a basic confusion about his identity. I say "confusion" because his being a boy is a fact, not an attitude. We should all be understanding and compassionate and kind and generous about it, but our behavior is neither the source of the problem nor the source of the solution.

The man who told you that is just a man. Although he is an "official representative" he is in fact a individual not the whole. To base your whole spiritual life and development on that incident as you claim is frankly childish and unbelievable. I mean I could believe it about Howard Dean as mcg has reminded us, but I would hope for better from you Jen. You did announce yourself as a troll at the begining of your comments and you seem to obviously be a sock puppet of Professor Olsen, but I would hope you would rexamine this if you are not just stirring the shit for fun. If you are just trolling, no harm no foul. But if this is really true, well it is pretty silly.

Jen: Why be a member of such an organization at all? It seems to me that, given the many comments listed above, you have achieved your morality in spite of, not because of, this religious group.

I can't speak for anyone else on this thread. I also cannot list every single reason why I am a Catholic, because that would take 10 pages, but I can tell you about two. First, a spiritual reason: It gives me great joy to attend Mass every Sunday, at either of the two churches I attend. Then, there is a cultural reason: It is an essential part of my identity.

People threw stones at my maternal grandmother's family when they were on their way to church. She lived in an area with very few Irish Catholics. Her parents were tolerant people, though, and when my grandmother grew up, she married a divorced WASP 30 years her senior.

She didn't drive and a lot of the time they did not have a car anyway. There was no Catholic church in their town, since it had been destroyed when NYC built the upstate Reservoir system early in the 1900's. There was Mass in a room over the general store, and my grandmother sent my mother and her two siblings. They didn't do communions or confirmations there, however.

Eventually, my grandfather's nephew, who also married a Catholic, donated a piece of land and raised money to build a church. My maternal grandfather's family was also extremely tolerant.

My father was orphaned as a child, and also never made his communion. My parents went for adult religious instruction and made their first communions in the 1950s.

When my brother died as a child, my mother, in particular, became closer to the church.

I attended the church my mother's cousin had built for us and still go there some weekends. It is a mission church, meaning it is attached to a larger parish. It was targeted to close when the NY Diocese did re-organization a couple of years ago, but in the end, we were spared. We had faith that we would not lose our little church again.

My mother has had a good "yield" among her children; three of the four of us are practicing Catholics, and the brother who isn't has a daughter who will be married married in our church on May 24.

Again, self deprecating humor seems to have no place here. I was called a troll. I thought that was funny. Early in this thread there were some troll comments. Blah blah.

The real issue is acceptance isn't it? Accept this little boy however he is. Accept me and my devotion to a beloved companion. No one religion has a monopoly on the truth. They almost all claim to be infallable. Word of god and whatnot.

I used to go to a strip club in Providence when I was in school in Boston.

The announcer had Tourette's Syndrome. He owned the place too. He had a microphone in his hand the entire night. The name of the place was "Tramps".

He would try to announce a little bio (like we all cared) about the dancer. In between learning that "Chad" was raised on a farm and loved skateboarding and going to the gym the announcer would yell out a big fuck you cocksucker to the audience. In which the audience cheered.

At the end of the night he would dance to I Am What I Am with a baton in each hand and the dancers voguing around him.

Tramps closed and has been replaced by the new strip club in Providence....Trixx.

I went to one in Boston and the entire congregation was gay. And another one in NYC that is totally gay. Sometimes they need to cater to the hood they are in. Both those masses were always packed when I attended. I said packed. The nuns were awesome too.

They almost all claim to be infallable.Neuhaus:"Forgiveness costs. Whatever the theory of atonement, this is at the heart of it, that forgiveness costs. Any understanding of what makes at-one-ment possible includes a few simple truths. First, like the child, we know that something very bad has happened. Something has gone very wrong with us and with the world of which we are part. The world is not and we are not what we know was meant to be. That is the most indubitable of truths; it is beyond dispute, it weighs with self-evident force upon every mind and heart that have not lost the sensibility that makes us human. The something very bad that has happened takes the form of the long, dreary list of history's horribles, from concentration camps to the tortured deaths of innocent children. And it takes the everyday forms of the habits of compromise, of loves betrayed, of lies excused, of dreams deferred until they die. The indubitable truth is illustrated in ways beyond number, from Auschwitz to the shattered cookie jar on the kitchen floor. Something very bad has happened."

The real issue is acceptance isn't it? Accept this little boy however he is. Accept me and my devotion to a beloved companion.

Jen. I think that Trey summed it up very nicely. The issue is the difference between tolerance and acceptance.

The problem is that leftists do not know the difference between tolerance and acceptance.

They speak of tolerance, but they crave acceptance

The Church (in the case of this poor child) and people as individuals can be tolerant without having to accept. Just as we can be tolerant of the sinner who has repented but we are not obligated to accept the sin. This child has committed no sin, in my humble opinion, and should not be punished, have his religion witheld from him and should be shown every bit of loving help he/she can get. However, the rest of the congregation cannot be forced to accept. Tolerate: yes. Accept: no.

Personally, I like the idea of greeting my pets in the afterlife (assuming I get to Heaven that is.. lol). If innocence and unconditional love are the ticket to Heaven, they surely have a first class seat.

Smilin' Jack: People and cultures can grow. An organization that regards itself as infallible cannot.

You are quite wrong.

The Church doesn't regard itself as infallible, and it has changed quite a lot over the centuries.

Its teaching about this may be summarized simply that it is a Church of sinners, but not a sinful Church.

There is an old motto I remember from Confirmation classes, which were taking place during Vatican II, in the days when we still used some Latin:

Ecclesia semper reformanda.

Dramatic change was taking place at the time, and this was a pithy way to put it in perspective.

The Church is a living thing, attempting with the guidance of the Holy Spirit to strengthen itself and to grow in Christ. But it always falls short of perfection, because it is made up of fallible human beings, enmeshed as we all are in sin and suffering.

Christ's teachings are in their nature infallible, but human beings and their understandings are far from it. We may be saved through Jesus's love and mercy. The Church is our best human attempt to gather as many as possible to Christ's Table, so that we may partake of that love.

We make a mess of it from time to time, but the Holy Spirit seems eventually to tap us on the collective shoulder and say, "Hey, Stupid!" So, the Church has always stirred itself, and has not, will not, and cannot remain mired in stasis and inaction, which are the inevitable consequences of crude and silly notions of infallibility.

Infallibility belongs to God alone, and the best we can do on our own, as St. Paul says, is to see through a glass darkly.

I consider myself pretty open minded on this stuff, but I have a hard time believing that an 8-year-old has a gender identity.

Why? I've yet to encounter a two-year-old who couldn't tell boys and girls apart, and identify which group he or she belonged to. And certainly anyone who has spent time around young children knows that boys and girls are different, mentally as well as physically, from an early age.

For those who want to cast a stone at the church that wouldn't allow Ben to be Katie at his first holy communion, keep in mind that according to that last article, he hasn't officially been diagnosed as transgender.

My son has a gender identity and I wasn't the one who formed it. He sleeps with a toy truck, is fascinated with trains, and likes dinosaurs. At 3 he's about as male as can be. Stuffed animals are ignored unless there's no trucks around.

Sooooo, I can sort of buy that a gender identity can go wrong (and I think it is a problem to think of yourself as the opposite gender). I wonder about his upbringing, but maybe there's something to it.

I find transgendered people to be pretty tragic, and I can't imagine anyone wanting to be one who was not already.

On the Catholic stuff, my father in law the deacon explained it pretty well. The Church is an international organization. The American Church would no doubt allow female ordination, probably openly gay priests, and all the stuff the mainline Protestants do. However, all the bishops and cardinals from the southern hemisphere would never go for it.

Of course, mainline Protestant Christianity is dying in America and is dead in Europe, so maybe the Africans and Latin Americans have a point.

Surely at the gates of heaven an all-compassionate God is not going to say "well, you're walking in on two legs, you can go in. You're walking in on four legs, we can't take you."

I think that at the gates of heaven, your perspectives will change. Do you think heaven is like the candy-coated Islamic Paradise where you get all the sex drugs and rocknroll you want? That sounds good to arrested developments like Atta, et al.

Smilin' Jack: We may be splitting hairs here, but there is a difference between infallibly expounding doctrine based on Christ's promise to the Church, and remaining unchanging and static, which is implied by your statement that an organization that regards itself as infallible cannot grow.

The Church has obviously grown over the centuries, from the Apostles and a small number of followers, to the largest world religion. Many Councils, inspired by the Holy Spirit, have brought about reforms in discipline and doctrine. Consider the Council of Trent, or the dramatic changes in the aftermath of Vatican II.

Yet how can an organization that is thought to be dry, formal, proud, intolerant, and, yes, infallible, grow and influence the lives of billions of people? People may want guidance, but who wants to be led by the nose by something that proclaims its static perfection for all time?

I should really make clear my understanding of what basis the Catholic Church regards itself as infallible and where it does not. My previous remark emphasized too much the doctrinal development and flexibility side of the matter, so here is a fuller explanation, as I understand it. I am no theologian, much less C.S. Lewis, but here goes.

This may be a hard point for some, but the Church regards itself as infallible only in her definitive dogmatic teaching regarding matters of faith and morals. The Church has generally been very careful over the centuries about the core dogma and teachings. There are some particularly Catholic twists and excrescences, but the holy prerogative of the Church, in an unbroken line from Jesus and the Apostles, to expound the teachings of Christ free from error is the very thing that has enabled the Church to grow and bring the love and mercy of Jesus to mankind.

This is difficult theology, but it is important to understanding Catholicism.

One problem is that the Church is said to be free from sin and error, yet is also a Church filled with error-prone sinners. Yet how can it be any different? We have feeble intellects and unsuitable words, but Christianity is not the mere product of natural reason. Once you have been blessed with a measure of belief, it is quite easy to understand that God can transcendentally guide and enlighten men, notwithstanding how imperfect and miserable they may otherwise be.

Even if you accept parts of this supernatural viewpoint, falling back on fallible human reason, asserting only human certainty in matters of faith to prove infallibility, can undermine the very foundations of Christian faith. Moral certainty of God and Christ as the infallible mediator of a Divine Revelation is fine, but no substitute for belief. The experience of God's power and perfection and Jesus's love, and the understanding of the Church's mediating role in this, transcends moral philosophy and logic. The Church ceases to be a mere collection of rather tiresome people, but a transcendent agent, connecting God and man. At this point, the infallibility of God and the Church become indistinguishable, and the believer may be able to comprehend how the community of believers has truly become the Body of Christ. If you have been around a Church enough, and been fortunate enough, you may well have experienced this, both in those brief moments when it seems the Holy Spirit has come upon the congregation, and in those longer-term relationships within the Church. This often seems more than just group solidarity and fellowship, but that's a subject for another theological disquisition.

Another point is that the authority of the Church is more like the law of a modern state than the arbitrary power of a dictator. There has historically been and remains a large margin for theological speculation and enquiry. Even in matters of infallibly expounded doctrine, there is always room for further enquiry, to better understand, explain, defend, and expand them. The only thing not allowed it to deny or change them, just as you cannot break the civil law without consequence. But there has always been a lively and often hotly contested tradition of debate and enquiry in the Catholic Church, which puts the lie to the image of obsequious, hide-bound pedants, so loved by Catholic-bashers.

As I emphasized in my first comment, there is a well-known tradition of doctrinal development and changes in discipline within the Catholic Church. But that doesn't mean that the Church changes her definitive teaching. Time passes, and human science advances, Church teaching is more deeply analyzed, more fully comprehended, and better coordinated and explained in itself and in relation to other branches of knowledge.

Ecclesia semper reformanda.

So, what appears to the opponents of Catholicism as intolerable and arbitrary, is, in reality, an organic part of the Church and a guarantor of the maintenance of the Christian faith.

There is the related issue of the Pope's infallibility, but I think I've gone on enough about the general matter, and will leave the Pope to shift for himself until another time.

Thanks for that comment Theo. I often feel much the same way about the British Protestant offspring from The Catholic Church, which are the Anglican(Episcopal) and the Presbyterian. As long as they had not denied the simple Apostles Creed faith, then they were free to reason and discuss all the rest of the days advanced culture preferences. I congratulate the Catholics for their courage to actually accomplish doing both today, while the Anglicans, and some Presbyterians, today deny they believe the Apostles Creed, thereby rendering themselves boring and powerless post-christians.

First, thanks, traditionalguy. And thank you, Trey, for those nice words about my first comment.

I think so much of the problem here is with the words "infallible" and "infallibility." They have a nasty sound in English that is at variance with what the reality is.

It's clear that the Catholic Church, and I think all Christians worthy of the name, regard the teachings of Jesus as ultimately infallible. The Church also regards the core Christian doctrine as expressed in Scripture and tradition as infallible, and she regards those parts of her teachings necessary for the maintenance and propagation of the Christian faith as infallible.

But the Church as a whole? I was taught not.

There are numerous matters of discipline, the most well-known being priestly celibacy, that are not dogmatic, and could be up for grabs at a future Council, or even changed by the Pope under certain circumstances.

There is also the large question of the Liturgy. Pope Benedict, for example, seems intent on restoring the option for the old Latin post-Tridentine Mass, but that is only part of a very large set of issues, few of which, BTW, have anything to do with infallibility.

I really should put all this in my own blog, but I'm a little afraid that if I really get wound up, I could easily turn into one of those Catholic bloggers, it being the subject that once I get started, I can't shut up about.

This is going to be a long comment, I'm afraid. I'll try to shorten it and split it so it's not one great indigestible chunk.

Oh God, the Ignorance!

Most of it quite understandable, this isn't taught in schools, it's embarrassing and makes people uncomfortable. There's medics who don't know it (I know, I've lectured to some med students on it), and priests who have no idea what the Vatican's position actually is, as it was sent sub secretum to bishops and above only.

Then there's the occasional pig-ignorant bigotry about "very expensive transvestites" and the like, from people who are both opinionated and completely clueless. The very definition of bigot.

Ok, some other definitions. Pardon me for coming over all arrogant and pedagogical, but the fact is, I *do* know this stuff, and most don't.

"Transgender" - this is an umbrella term, meaning anyone who doesn't fit into the strict "binary gender" model. You know, girls on one side, boys on another, no confusion, everything consistent. It includes those whose gender presentation is a political statement, and those whose biology just doesn't fit the normal definitions exactly. And in some cases, not at all.

"Transsexual" - someone whose documentation and/or appearance looks normal (or normal-ish) for one sex, but who are actually the other. Or mostly the other.

"Intersex" - someone whose body is neither wholly male nor wholly female. This covers hundreds of different medical syndromes, people who are female but have the 46xy chromosomes usually found only in men, or who are male but have the 46xx chromosomes usually only found in women. Or those with 47xxy chromosomes, or whose appearance changes naturally from that of one sex at birth to the other later in life. Or those with ambiguous genitalia or endocrinology, so they fit neither category well.

By the most strict definition, only 59 people in 60 are 100% male or 100% female. But of the 1 in 60 who aren't, it often takes a lab to detect it, it's not apparent. Often such people can't have children, but unless they go to a fertility clinic, neither they nor anyone else knows they're Intersexed. They look normal.

For 1 in 1000 or so though, it's pretty darned obvious. When a little girl starts masculinising, when things that were internal descend, labia fuse, and genitalia changes, that's pretty obvious. That's more common than you think, at least 5,000 men in the US were born looking female.

Getting back to transsexuality - what is it? Basically, a form of Intersex that affects the central nervous system. The sound-byte, which is a gross over-simplification but more accurate than not, is male brain in female body, or female brain in male body.

We now know that typical male brains and typical female brains differ from each other more than we'd ever suspected. That's not just a matter of gross brain size, but goes down to the cellular level, different structures have different types of cells, and for the same structure, boys may use it for one purpose, girls another. Individuals differ though, so it's doubtful if anyone is entirely "typical" in all areas of the brain. It's messy and blurry.

OK, female brain in male body, say. So how does that lead to a female "gender identity"? Good question - all we have is theories there, and the observed fact that it does.

In severe cases, this is obvious at age 3. It's almost always obvious by age 7. This has little to do with sexual orientation by the way, as kids that age don't have a sexuality. They do have a gender though, they know whether they're boys or girls (mostly... some Intersexed kids don't fit in either category, both neurologically and somatically).

Most people who are "transgendered" have no detectable somatic or neurological anomaly. They neither want nor need any medical intervention. They're neither transsexual nor intersexed.

At the other end of the scale are those kids who were born Intersexed, and who were surgically assigned a gender by medics who didn't like the idea of a kid not fitting into the binary model.

When this is done arbitrarily, usually to female as (as one surgeon infamously said) "it's easier to make a hole than a pole", about 1 in 3 end up transsexual. Usually male brain, female body. Boys can get extremely upset that they were castrated as babies, and surgically altered simply because their willies were deemed not long enough to pass muster. They get even more upset when they're told that to object to this makes them "mentally ill".

You see the same thing with 5ARD and 17BHDD syndromes, where the 46xy kids all look female at birth, but masculinise later. About 1 in 3 (the boys) have their existing transsexuality cured by the natural change. 1 in 3 are able to "go with the flow", they're bigendered. And 1 in 3 (the girls) become transsexual, and without treatment, may suicide.

Kids who meet the psych diagnostic criteria for GID - "Gender Identity Disorder" - are not necessarily transsexual. The majority, 2 in 3, grow up to be merely effeminate gays or butch lesbians. But 1 in 3 are transsexual, and in this case, it's dollars to donuts this girl was lumbered with a male body. Or motly male, about 1 in 10 of transsexual kids have other intersex conditions too, the brain isn't the only part that's cross-gendered compared with the rest of the body.

Most of our knowledge in this area is less than 10 years old. It was 1996 when autopsies of transsexuals showed cross-gendering in the brain, and much of the MRI and other data is even more recent.

By 2003 the "brain-sex" theory was accepted as more likely than not, and now, while not absolutely proven, it's becoming the scientific consensus because other theories are really only un-evidenced conjectures.

See seminar s10 at the American Psychiatric Association annual meeting :

Thanks, Zoe. I've looked at your stuff before. It's really fascinating. I'm sorry for the pain that people sometimes have to go through because they're different, but how boring we would be if we all fit into mold A or mold B.

...

"Blogger Nichevo said...

The question is, how long would such people survive in a state of nature?"

I reckon they'd survive as long as any of us would - until they couldn't find food or water, or until a bear ate them.

I tried a bit in my long-winded comments on the theology of infallibility—that really could have been boiled down to a couple of paragraphs—but what Zoe Brain had to say about neurology and sex may have been long, but it is fascinating. I had a vague idea, but nothing like this information.

Zoe, your post coincides with my understanding of the material with one possible exception. Do you hold the binary gender understanding in contempt? 999 of 1000 is an amazingly accurate codification in my book.

I survived gender identity disorder while growing up in the late 50's and early 60's.

While in Catholic school I perceived the limits of love and understanding, and didn't believe they extend to me.

I survived by suppressing all feeling. This worked well since in the male role I learned that feelings were irrelevant. What mattered was the anatomy between my legs and how I conducted myself socially given that condition.

I'm sorry for the pain that people sometimes have to go through because they're different,We don't go through pain because we're different. we go through pain because people use that difference to hurt us.

Trey - it's more like 1 in 60 rather than 1 in 1000. But even 1 in 1000 means there's over 300,000 people in this position in the USA.

I don't hold the "Binary Gender" model in contempt. It's a really good approximation, as good as saying the Earth is Flat.

When going down to the shops, or even driving interstate, you use a map that assumes an Earth that is "flat enough". It's only in exceptional cases, such as very accurate navigation (as in surveying), or navigation over long distances that that approximation doesn't work.

So it is with the binary gender model. For most circumstances it works well enough.

Trying to apply it in all circumstances though as if it's Holy Writ just doesn't work, any more than a platygean model works for intercontinental travel.

My thanks to everyone who found my posts informative. There's rather more on my blog, along with the links to the medical and scientific articles.

I try to retain an impersonal indifference, sticking strictly to the science. I fail every time there's children involved. You know that 50% of transgendered kids self-harm before age 20 if given no support, or worse, "reparative" therapy?

My detachment evaporates when I consider that statistic.

I've dealt with too many blighted lives. I've also seen the wonderful results when the kids are given the support that this girl's getting. I just wish with all my heart that she wasn't in such a small minority!

I'm a girl. Believe it or not I don't have to wear a dress to feel like a girl. I'm wearing gym shorts right now, and hey, imagine that, I still feel like a girl.

You can identify as a girl without wearing a dress. These parents are being silly to cater to a boy who says he MUST wear a dress. If you had a little girl, and she insisted on wearing a dress somewhere that you didn't want her to for whatever reason, would you really feel that she would be psychologically harmed by being subjected to other clothing? Give me a break.

Also, the boy's body is what it is. There are lots of ways to hate your body. Funny that gender is the only one where a psychologist would advocate that it's fine to hate it or even have it mutilated to look like something else.

Why are people with transgender identities not counseled to accept their bodies as they are? If you're a really girly man, fine. If you're a really boyish girl, fine. Love yourself for who you are.

(Obviously my comments regarding surgeries are a spinoff of this story. I assume no psychologist is advocating surgery for an 8 year old. I just hate to think of how he's likely to be counseled in the future.)

I tried resigning myself to the male role; the biology is destiny approach. It didn't work, in spite of my apparent success in life. I was always aware of my unhappiness and I knew why. By age 27 suicide was looking like the better option than living the male role.

After surgery I had an appreciation for my body that I never felt with it's male anatomy.

Surgery fixed exactly one aspect of my life. I spent another 20 years working on the spiritual and psychological healing.

For about ten years I had occasional recurring nightmares that the surgery somehow came undone and the old anatomy was back.

Knowing what I know now I would do it all over again if I had to. Fortunately the surgery is permanent and irreversible.

I feel there is a very good chance that the above is not a true question, but is in fact a statement disguised as a question. Any answer is immaterial, for what it really does is make the statement 'You hold the binary gender understanding in contempt.'

Why are people with transgender identities not counseled to accept their bodies as they are?Good Question.

The simple answer is that that was tried for over 60 years, and the patients kept on dying. Most unco-operative of them, I know.

It still is being tried. And the patients of those counselors keep on dying, even though the counselors know that if they just try one more time, it's bound to work. It has to.

Go to PubMed, the online medical database, and you'll see the results.

Counselling has been tried, extensively. Just some of the techniques used - Psychotherapy, Cognitive Thrapy, Neuro-Linguistic Reprograming, Psychotropic drugs of various sorts, Electro-convulsive therapy, Psychoanalysis, "Aversion Therapy" involving painful electric shocks to eyeballs and genitalia - with or without nauseating drugs being administered, "Spirit Release" therapy, lobotomy, leucotomy, Exorcism... yes, they got pretty desperate, and although some showed initial promise, follow-ups showed no "cure" lasted even 5 years. Zero success rate, and even the most intense brainwashing and torture didn't have more than a temporary effect. The more radical brain surgery may have worked, but as the patient was unable to talk or even feed themselves afterwards, that wasn't a great success either. Lesser brain surgery just lowered the IQ and rendered them genderless.

I included the link to the "Exorcism" as most people have some difficulty believing they went that far. The accounts of torture are in PubMed too, just dressed up in more acceptable terms. There's some real Mengele stuff.

As a thought experiment - imagine you had been kidnapped by a traditional "Mad Scientist". He anaesthetises you, and when you're under, gives you a radical hysterectomy, a bilateral mastectomy, temporarily takes your face off and reshapes your browbones, jaw and sinuses to give a nice ruggedly masculine look, and even manages to make a pretty good job of replumbing you urethra and constructing a phallus any man would be proud of. A testosterone implant, and when you wake up, their you are, feeling like a new man, beard and all.

You get rescued... and are then encouraged by another woman not to seek surgical reversal of your ruggedly handsome appearance, but to accept your body as it is.

You still have the same emotions, thoughts and feelings, but with so much testosterone in your system, you can't even cry.

Worse, the mismatch between the female neurology you have and the masculine hormone balance leads to progressive neurological dysfunction. The misery becomes worse over time, not better. You look down at your chest hair, and inside you scream that this is all so terribly wrong, a nightmare you pray you will wake up from.

Now imagine that if you did seek surgical reversal of what was done to you - though you could never get fully restored - then you were treated as suffering from "gender identity disorder", a mental illness meaning a mismatch between your gender identity and your body.

Now this may sound fanciful - but something like it happens to Intersexed children in the USA every day. They get surgically assigned a gender, and at puberty, are given (sometimes completely against their will) hormones in accordance with that assigned gender, and not the gender they know themselves to be.

How do I know this? I don't mean the science, anyone with a few years to spend researching who has university-grade web access can do at least as well.

I mean, how do I know how it feels?

I straddle the border between Intersexed and Transsexual.

When I was 10, I picked my new name, "Zoe", as it was obvious I wasn't a boy, no matter what I looked like. I didn't particularly want to be a girl, boys got to do more interesting stuff, doctors not nurses, astronauts not typists.

Then I got some biology lessons at school. It was... not a good time. But I tried to make the most of it. To be the best Man any Woman could be, because I looked like a footballer, not a cheerleader.

In 1985, I went to a fertility clinic. They gave me a physical examination, some blood tests, and I was diagnosed as a mildly intersexed male. You see, although I looked male, mostly, there were skeletal and other anomalies, typical of Partial AI syndrome. Women with Complete AI syndrome look utterly female, even if they have the 46xy chromosomes usually found only in males. People with Partial AI syndrome look mostly female, mostly male, or somewhere in between, depending on the degree. Mine was mild.

In 2005, much to everyone's surprise and consternation, I had what can only be described as a female puberty. My appearance changed, radically. This was something of a medical emergency, and after MRI scans, ultrasounds, blood tests, gene tests, the works, my medical team decided that I was most accurately described as a severely intersexed woman. I didn't look remotely male by then, though my reproductive system was a dysfunctional, ambiguous mess.

Surgery fixed that, and for the first time in my life, I had genitalia that looked normal.

You know that thought experiment? I lived for 47 years with that. It was Hellish.

We take it for granted that boys do not wear dresses, and if they do, it would indicate a possible transgender issue.

Aren't we overlooking the fact that many boys wore dresses (and were dressed like girls) until well into the 20th Century?

http://histclo.com/Style/skirted/Dress/dresswhy.html

http://members.tripod.com/~histclo/dress.html

I don't know what to make of such past practices. Were they just hung up Victorians inflicting unacknowledged transgender issues on their children? Or are we hung up about something that didn't especially bother previous generations?